Princess Theatre
511 Church Street,
Nashville,
TN
37219
511 Church Street,
Nashville,
TN
37219
1 person
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The Princess Theatre is listed as residing at 511 Church Street in the 1917-44 Nashville city directories. The theatre reopened at 415 Church Street around 1949.
Contributed by
Jack Coursey
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Recent comments (view all 30 comments)
By Mr. Tony, do you mean Tony Sudekum?Any more info or history would be great.
To begin with there was Henry Sudekum, a baker and merchant, born in Pittsburgh in 1855 and died in Nashville in 1952 at a very respectable age, as you can see. Henry’s wife was Sara Eggensperger or Eggensberger- I have seen it both ways. Their crypt is in the old mausoleum at Spring Hill if you care to pay your respects. They had seven children, four of whom were sons and would be involved with Crescent Amusement Company.
Henry and son Anthony (“Mr Tony”) and Wiley J Williams opened their
first theater -the Dixie- on Nashville’s 5th Avenue in 1907. This little theater seated 170 and at a nickel a pop a full house brought in $8.40. By 1916 Tony had become the top man of the growing concern.
Mr Tony married Nettie Elizabeth Fessler and they had four daughters: Viola, Betsy, Marie and Sara, all of whom have now passed on. Viola and Sara were married to top men in Crescent: Vi to Elmer Baulch and Sara to Kermit Stengel.
Mr Tony’s brothers William, Harry and Clarence “Hap” were all at various times managers of one or the other of the company’s moving picture houses.
William managed the Elite on Monroe and later the Elite on Charlotte (Note: there were four different Elites in Nashville over the years and they were all pronounced E-lite) and eventually was a branch manager of Crescent.
Harry managed the Princess at one time and Hap ran the Roxy. This is not a complete listing of these brothers' careers but you get the point.
Bob Baulch, a grandson of Mr Tony’s, once told me the firm at peak had partnerships in about 125 houses and owned about 75 outright. These extended from Union City on the west to Kingsport the east and as far north as Madisonville, KY, and as far south as Gadsden, AL. The firm also owned the Union Ice Cream of my youth as well as Hippodrome Ford and the Hippodrome Roller Rink. Bob said the Princess and the Orpheum were Mr Tony’s favorite theaters. Crescent sold their theaters to Martin in 1961 but kept other interests until later years.
Please send in any corrections to the above- thanks.
Thank you very much Dave, The Roxy and Elite have their own pages on Cinema Treasures not much info on them though anything that you could add or correct would be helpful.I thought that there had been serveral Elite theatres in Nashville.Also you just gave me the ansewer to a question I posted on the Fifth Ave Theatre Page about Crescent Amusement Co.
Just updated the street veiw,where the 1st.Princess Theatre was located.
Great pic, TLSLOEWS. To the youngsters looking at this, the main part of this property facing Church Street was occupied by the Jackson Building, the Princess lobby was on the westerly (right) side over next to McKendree Methodist and the auditorium was at the back of the property, behind the Jackson Bldg.
Old timers recall eating at Shackletts in the Jackson Bldg. They had a bread cart that came around and you could pick what you wanted.
Most things that I recall fondly do not exist any more!!
Thanks Dave,Harveys,Cain-Sloan,the theatres all long gone.At least the Arcade is still there.Good the see you back on Cinema Treasures.
“most things I recall do not exist anymore” how true ,TLS.
Yeah Mike, me and Robin are friends on Facebook now maybe she could post my photos on there if she still has them. I have posted some theatre stuff on my page.Now back to the Princess Theatre not to be off topic.LOL.
My father worked at Florsheim Shoes, on the corner next to the Princess. The Jackson Bldg and that half-block was torn down to build Cain-Sloan Department Store. Florsheim moved around on 6th Ave N next to the Knickerbocker Theatre and the Princess moved down the block to the site of the old Grand Theatre. Like so much of the rich heritage of Nashville, the original site of the Princess and the Jackson Bldg is now an asphalt parking lot, adding to the bank account of Central Parking, Public Enemy No. 1 to Nashville’s architectural history.
Danny52: The original Grand was on Cherry Street (now Fourth Ave) north of Cedar (now Charlotte) and burned November 8, 1902. The name Grand was immediately carried to the former Masonic which was on the north side of Church Street at 422, whereas the New Princess was on the south side in the same block at 415 starting in 1951. There had very briefly been a Parthenon Theater on the south side at 411 in 1915-1916.